


Life is not kind

by IronicallyPresent



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Female Harry Potter, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, magic ritual kinda being used as a metaphor for rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:55:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25791718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IronicallyPresent/pseuds/IronicallyPresent
Summary: Harry Potter has just lived through the worst experience of her short life. This is the aftermath.
Relationships: Harry Potter & Hermione Granger
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	Life is not kind

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been reading some Fem!harry fics and some regular Harry/Cedric fics set in book four and it really hit me how messed up the whole ritual thing was and how defiled Harry probably felt so I wanted to write something expressing that. Warning this may be triggering for some people please don’t read if allusions to rape and child abuse are things that make you uncomfortable.

Harry drew in a shaking breath, attempting to muffle it with her hand as she desperately tried to regain control. She sat shivering on her four poster curtains drawn and wand lit, casting her face in a cold blue-white glow. Despite her shivering she made no attempt to pull her cover onto herself uncomfortable with anything touching her. She couldn’t close her eyes without seeing green light, she couldn’t uncover her ears without hearing high cold laughter and her own pitiful screaming. She couldn’t escape from the graveyard, at least not the memories of it. For all it had been only a few hours ago it felt like the event had happened both years and seconds ago all at once. Like a broken mirror, shards of memory surrounded her and cut into her fragile skin.  
Professor Dumbledore had taken her to the hospital wing after rescuing her from Crouch (why had she needed rescuing in the first place? How had he let this happen?) Another betrayal, another blow to her crumbling defences (who could she trust? How did she know that anyone around her was really her friends? What if they were just waiting to hurt her too?) The Minister following doggedly on their heels hurling insistence that she admit Voldemort was not in fact back. Either the man was blind to the state she was in or he simply hadn’t cared, Harry thought it was likely the former. She’d learnt a long time ago that adults in authority weren’t to be trusted, especially when they were men, yet she’d foolishly thought (hoped) the wizarding world would be different, of course it wouldn’t be why would it?  
She had skipped dinner, unable to stomach any food and unable to bare the penetrating stares of her peers (did they know? Could they see?) Harry had spent the following hours curled up on her bed, lacking the physical or mental energy to do anything, yet lacking the peace of mind to sleep. She herd her roommates enter softly not too long ago, had felt an inquisitive stare on her curtain cocoon (Hermione she knew it would be) but still she stayed still.  
Her skin was blemish free, not even a bruise bloomed on her waxen face, so much paler than her normally tanned complexion. All save for the lightning bolt scar that cut across her face the way it would a night sky. She couldn’t hold back a snort at the memory of how she used to LIKE the accursed scar, she’d found it interesting. Well she couldn’t argue that the tale behind it wasn't interesting, it just wasn’t the tale of adventure her childhood mind had pretended it to be on countless occasions while locked in her cupboard. She thought it was interesting now how the most traumatic experience in her short life had left no scars (at least no visible ones) and yet she bared many from her time under the ‘care’ of her relatives.  
Like the scar across her ribs from where Dudley wanted to try out his new pen knife. Or the scar on her hand from where uncle Vernon had held it over the hob when she’d burned his bacon. Or even the scar hidden in her hairline from where aunt Petunia had hit her with a frying pan. As well as many more she had forgotten the source of. In comparison HE only had two on her. The scar that ran from her forehead till it cut across her right eyebrow and the scar across her left arm. Although Harry mused the ownership of that could be attributed to the basilisk rather than her master.  
Oh how Tom would rage at being upstaged by muggles, that thought alone almost made her think positively on her hellish childhood, yet deep down she knew she was kidding her self. Her life had been a trail of traumatic events one after the other with increasing affect. Harry knew how this would all end. After all how could she not? Her life’s procession was only leading to one thing and yet she didn’t fear it (a difference, thank merlin, between her and HIM) in fact Harry thinks she’ll welcome it, a peaceful quiet to juxtapose her painfully active life...  
Wormtale had used her blood, she had felt the pull within her- from a part of herself she was only just noticing existed, as he had used her very own magic to fuel the act. It made her feel dirty and used as if her magic and thus herself had been tainted by the act. Worst still Voldemort had decided to display his victory by running his pale claw like finger along her scar. Bringing about a wave of agony Harry imagined a crucio would feel like. If the pain itself wasn’t enough the realisation that came with it was just as painful. Her mother’s protection was gone, the protection Lily Potter had died to give her daughter striped away by a ritual conducted by the very man who had betrayed her.  
Harry’s feelings of being sullied weren’t made better by the look in her ageing headmasters eyes when she finally managed to put coherent words to her ordeal. He had looked so disappointed, she knew how vital her mothers protection was, having it had saved her life once already, but Harry had tried to focus on the fact she had lived past it’s destruction. No more blessing, no help, and yet she still lived (she was traumatised and never thought she’d be the same again) but Harry had survived (again... for all she didn’t fear death Harry Potter had a nack for avoiding it.) But Dumbledore had just looked at her with pity (she had wanted to scream at him) he had just looked at her like she was ruined...  
Harry clenched her hands by her sides gripping the linen of her bedsheets, feeling the softness between her ruff hands.  
The curtains to her right split apart admitting a head of frizzy curls. Hermione didn’t say a word, she just crawled across the bed till her back was at the head board and her legs were stretched out beside her green eyed friend. Just as silently Harry slowly lowered herself till her head rested in Hermione’s lap, her legs curled up behind her. A hand began to gently pet her hair and Harry allowed the light of her wand to dim.  
What had happened had undoubtedly changed her, it had shaken her too her core, it had shattered her to pieces. But the thing was, Harry had always been broken, Harry had always had shattered edges from the multiple times her relatives broke her down every-time she tried to make her self something whole something normal. So Harry knew how to function when shattered, she knew that shattered edges are sharp and they can hurt others just as much as they hurt her. Harry refused to be ruined- no, she would be ruination.


End file.
